Sleep inside Tiepolo’s painted China, wake to a forest opened after 300 years

In this story: Tiepolo’s China, Without Going to China ↓ Sleep After Visiting Hours ↓ The Forest Opened After 300 Years ↓ Eat at the Villa ↓ Private Events in a Historic Italian Villa ↓

TIEPOLO’S CHINA, WITHOUT GOING TO CHINA

Chinoiserie was one of eighteenth century Europe’s great interior obsessions. Chinese silks, porcelain, lacquer and other Asian luxury goods fed a European decorative language that the Victoria and Albert Museum describes as an imaginative mixture of motifs from China, Japan and elsewhere in Asia, creating a fantasy world far removed from documentary representation. [1]

In 1757, Giandomenico Tiepolo brought that fascination into the Foresteria of Villa Valmarana ai Nani. The Chinoiserie Room surrounds its occupants with the Moon Goddess, a fabric merchant and a Mandarin, part of the younger Tiepolo’s wider cycle devoted to contemporary life, different cultures and the social world of his time. [2, 3]

On 24 September 1786, Johann Wolfgang Goethe visited Villa Valmarana and recorded the encounter in his Italian travel diary. He admired Tiepolo’s decoration but made an intriguing distinction: the “high style”, he wrote, had succeeded less well than the “natural” one, in which he found particularly delightful things. [10]

SLEEP AFTER VISITING HOURS

The Tiepolo Villa Valmarana's Chinese room belongs to the European taste for chinoiserie, fed by Venice’s long commercial fascination with Asia. The walls include a Moon deity, merchants, fabrics, spices and an imagined botanical world. One maritime pine even pushes beyond the painted architectural border, playing with the boundary between the real room and the world painted around it. Tiepolo himself had never travelled to China. [2, 3]

The exceptional part comes after visiting hours, when the Chinoiserie Room is available for a private overnight stay. It comes with its own sitting room and bathroom. After 10am the frescoed room returns to public visiting hours, while guests retain use of their private facilities. [2]

Breakfast can be served on the villa terrace or inside the frescoed Rooms of the Putti or Architectures. The stay also includes admission to the Palazzina, Foresteria and historic park during opening hours. [2]

There is a second way to sleep within the estate. Nani 2 occupies the restored former granary of the Foresteria and has three bedrooms, seven beds, two bathrooms, a kitchen and surviving decorative frescoes in the principal bedroom. [2]

For travellers comparing the best unique stays in Italy, the distinction is unusually strong. This is the actual eighteenth century Foresteria frescoed by Giandomenico Tiepolo, still part of the Valmarana estate.

THE FOREST OPENED AFTER 300 YEARS

The stay has another reason to extend well beyond the frescoes: a three hundred year old woodland with an eighteenth century Chinese Pagoda hidden among the trees.

The historic forest opened to the public in 2025 after three centuries. Four routes now cross the restored landscape, moving through botany, butterflies, art and history, with multimedia installations appearing along the way. The eighteenth century woodland was restored through Italy’s PNRR programme for historic parks and gardens. [7, 8]

The most unexpected stop is the restored Chinese Pagoda. Inside, a four minute audiovisual installation reinterprets Giandomenico Tiepolo’s chinoiseries through the ideas of the Enlightenment, nature, reality and eighteenth century fascination with the exotic. [11]

Further into the woods is the Nest, an accessible raised walkway that climbs among the trees and opens towards the Valletta del Silenzio, the Valley of Silence. Sensors activate the sounds of birds and insects as you move through it, making the forest itself part of the experience. [11]

There is also the Stump, another sensory installation built around the rings of an old tree and the sounds of wooden musical instruments. Together, Pagoda, Nest and Stump make the woodland feel less like the grounds of a historic villa and more like a second chapter of the stay. The woodland and gardens can be visited independently. [11]

For an overnight guest, the sequence is exceptionally good: sleep inside Tiepolo’s painted China, wake among eighteenth century gardens, find another Chinese fantasy in the forest, and end above the Valley of Silence.

This part of Villa Valmarana was largely inaccessible until its recent restoration.

A €1.92 million restoration supported by Italy’s Ministry of Culture through the PNRR programme recovered the historic park and opened substantial areas to visitors. The Italian Association of Landscape Architecture, AIAPP, records that around two thirds of the park had previously been inaccessible because of maintenance and safety conditions. The project used eighteenth century watercolours and botanical research to reconstruct elements of the historic landscape, including the orientalising garden around the Pagoda. [7, 8]

Touring Club Italiano singled out the restored woodland, Pagoda, terraces, Italian garden and raised kitchen garden when the park reopened in 2025. [9]

EAT AT THE VILLA

The villa café occupies the historic kitchen of the Foresteria and extends onto a terrace overlooking the Scuderia. Coffee, pastries, small dishes, platters, wine and cocktails are served there, with the Sala dei Putti, Sala delle Architetture, portico and terrace used according to the season. [4]

Private hospitality can go further. The villa’s official experience programme includes aperitifs, tastings and gourmet dinners, while catering is available for private occasions held within the estate. [5]

So an overnight stay can remain entirely within the property, frescoes at breakfast, gardens during the day, aperitivo or dinner after public visiting hours.

PRIVATE EVENTS IN A HISTORIC ITALIAN VILLA

Villa Valmarana ai Nani offers a hospitality experience that transcends the conventional overnight stay. Through its official private events programme, discerning guests can secure the exclusive buyout of the entire monumental complex for private events, or select individual architectural jewels, including the frescoed Palazzina, the historic Foresteria, and the Italian garden, for an unforgettable, tailored occasion in Vicenza. [6]

This seamless convergence of luxury accommodation and elite heritage positioning elevates the estate far beyond standard event spaces. A private gala dinner, a milestone birthday, a high profile cultural soirée, or a classical concert takes on a legendary dimension when staged beneath the brushstrokes of Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo. [6]

For global tastemakers researching the best historic estates in Europe or planning luxury private events in Italy, Villa Valmarana establishes a vital distinction: the possibility of combining heritage villa rental with private historic lodging within a single, cohesive estate. The availability of full exclusivity over several days, including all guest rooms, frescoed halls, and private grounds, must be confirmed directly with the estate management. [6]